A ROSE AND A DARE

The Delaware Republicans are picking up where they
left off the last election season -- with a debate over
how far to drive their party to the right in this
moderately inclined state.

The Republicans who voted in the 2010 primary veered
as far as they could. When Mike Castle gets called a
RINO -- Republican in Name Only -- and beaten by
Christine O'Donnell, this was an electorate that was not
kidding around.

Now the party leadership could be going where the
voters pointed. It seems that watching Joe Biden's old
Senate seat stay comfortably in Democratic hands, namely
the ones belonging to Chris Coons, was not considered a
deterrent to a march rightward.

Nor were the Republicans' repeated shellackings over
the years, an accumulation that has given the Democrats
every statewide office, except auditor, along with
control of the entire General Assembly. The electorate
at large has not been kidding around, either.

The Republicans will be gathering at the end of April
for their state convention, and the pivotal event could
be the election for national committeewoman, the party
officer who represents Delaware on the Republican
National Committee along with the state chair and
national committeeman.

The current one is Priscilla Rakestraw, whose tenure
dating back to 1976 makes her the longest serving member
on the national committee. She has been such an iconic
presence that people could be excused for thinking GOP
did not stand for Grand Old Party but Good Old
Priscilla.

Word started circulating over the weekend that
Rakestraw, a moderate Republican, would have competition
from the right if she wanted to run for another
four-year term.

It is coming from Ellen Barrosse, probably best known
in political circles as the founder of A Rose and a
Prayer, formed in 2005 with a mission to curtail
abortions in Delaware through prayer, education and
compassion. The organization is a familiar lobbying
force in Dover with its prayer rallies outside
Legislative Hall and its distribution of roses to
legislators.

Barrosse is also an accomplished businesswoman. She
took a one-woman shop and turned it into Synchrogenix
Information Strategies, an international firm
headquartered in Wilmington with 50 employees who draft
the documents sent to regulatory agencies to get new
drugs approved.

"We have to pull together to end one-party rule in
Delaware," Barrosse said. "I admire her [Rakestraw] very
much and her tenure and her perseverance. She's at the
lit drops. She's given her life for the party. A lot of
people in this state really respect her. In that regard,
I'm kind of sad to be running against her. I think I can
help the party. I speak business, and I speak social
conservative."

It is a serious challenge to Rakestraw, serious
enough to give her pause.

"I'm being urged to seek re-election from both
national and local Republicans. I have willingly
dedicated much of my life to the Republican Party and to
our principles and our candidates. I want to make the
right decision, both for the party and for me,"
Rakestraw said.

"My extensive experience and knowledge both on the
Republican National Committee and the Republican Party
of Delaware are an asset to everyone, and I'm proud of
it."

If Barrosse took over as national committeewoman, it
would distribute the party leadership between movement
politics and practical politics.

There would be John Sigler, the state chair who is a
past president of the National Rifle Association, and
Barrosse from A Rose and a Prayer, and there also would
be Greg Lavelle, the vice chair who is the state House
minority leader, and Laird Stabler, the national
committeeman who is a lawyer and a lobbyist.

Sigler and Lavelle are not up for re-election.
Stabler is, but so far he is unopposed.

Barrosse has plenty of encouragement to run. A lot of
it is coming from four cheerleaders who have been
systematically trying to work themselves into the power
circles of state politics. They are Charlie Copeland,
the state Senate's former minority leader, Colin Bonini,
a state senator, Michael Fleming, a past chair of the
New Castle County Republicans, and Lavelle.

Copeland ran for lieutenant governor in 2008. Bonini
ran for state treasurer in 2010. If they have been
unable to advance by taking out Democrats, maybe a
Republican will do.

Barrosse & Co. say her candidacy is not about
conservative ideology but energizing the party.

"She's familiar enough with politics to know it's the
art of the possible. She's committed to raising money
for the Republican Party for the purpose of getting
Republicans elected," Copeland said. "I think turnover
in politics is healthy. Priscilla has done the party a
great service for a long time, but I think we need a
different set of skills right now."

Rakestraw got into politics as a DuPonter, working in
human resources when the company was the colossus of
Delaware. It spun out Republican candidates and
operatives the way it spun out scientific patents,
people like Russell Peterson, a governor (who later
became a Democrat), Terry Spence, a speaker, and Dick
Sincock, a chair of the Joint Finance Committee.

Rakestraw became the national committeewoman as Pete
du Pont was campaigning for governor. It put her in the
center of the party's glory days, highlighted by four
consecutive terms of the governorship under du Pont and
Castle, a congressional delegation often stacked toward
the Republicans, and 24 years running of Republican
control in the state House of Representatives.

Along the way, she was also elected to a New Castle
County row office in 1992 but lost in 1996. The loss did
not seem terribly significant at the time, but it was.

Rakestraw was caught up by the rise of the Democrats.
Now she could be looking at the rise of the
conservatives. This is not failure. It takes the utmost
in political agility to be around long enough for the
pounding of two tides.